Home Education Diaries – July

And now we’re into August and the second half of the summer. We had such a good run of weather for the last couple of months that I can’t believe we’ll have anything but rain now! We’re still going to make the most of it though, despite any rain prediction! At least it will give us a chance to make the weather station that the kids want to test out from their science book.

Anyhow, here’s what we learnt in July.

Eldest

Art and Design

Creating cards for family and friends.

Drawing pictures in his journal about summer activities.

Colouring in dinosaur pictures for a new game he invented (dinosaur hide and seek).

Sand art pictures (he’s loving crafts at the minute).

Making clay animals and painting them.

Drawing in the sand on the beach.

Making a road mat on cardboard and drawing in buildings including zoos and supermarkets.

Science

Visited a Puffin colony on Lunga and observed them flying, social calls and jumping into burrows to feed their pufflings.

Learning about basalt columns and lava flows on Staffa.

Bug hunting and holding different large insects as part of a science summer class.

Exploring the science of bubble making, measuring out ingredients and making giant bubbles.

Visited the Glasgow Science Centre.

Created chain reactions and testing hypotheses.

Visited Mull aquarium and learnt about Scottish sea animals.

Language

Reading stories together every day.

Pointing out what letter words begin with and helping his brother identifying letters.

Writing note cards for family, mostly simple words and names.

Practising using both capital and lowercase letters in words.

Writing words with help for spelling in both his journal and every day play.

Great improvement in legibility of his written words.

Writing shopping list for garden fruit and vegetables (strawberries, peas, blackcurrants etc.) with some help for spelling.

Begun Reading Eggs app again.

Maths

Counting money for buying items on holiday.

Playing board games together.

Using Mathseeds and Doodlemaths.

Practising telling the time.

Measuring out whilst baking.

History

Watching a film at a museum on Mull about the history of Mull and Scotland.

Discussions about the clearances and people who used to live on the Scottish islands.

Geography

Visited Mull and discussed it’s location in Scotland.

Visited Staffa and observed the basalt columns created by volcanic activity.